


This Is Not My Cat

by Anonymous



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Also their cats - Freeform, M/M, This is Not My Cat AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-26
Updated: 2019-10-26
Packaged: 2021-01-03 16:17:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 877
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21182339
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: There is a cat in Shiro’s sink.It is not his cat.(Shiro and Keith are neighbors whose cats trade places in the night. A meet-cute birthday ficlet for a friend!)





	This Is Not My Cat

**Author's Note:**

  * For [strangeandintoxicating](https://archiveofourown.org/users/strangeandintoxicating/gifts).

There’s a cat in Takashi Shirogane’s sink.

This isn’t exactly news. Shiro’s cat is practically a black panther in a poor housecat disguise, waiting to ambush him at any given moment. He’d unintentionally stolen her years ago, when she followed him out of the VA hospital on 23rd street, her tail held high, and waltzed into his new apartment like she owned the place. He’d named her Empress, and now, she makes sure that Shiro has at least one reason to get up in the morning, if only to feed her.

This cat is not his Empress.

This cat is practically a dog.

Massive ears flick back as Shiro turns on the kitchen light. A bushy tail threatens to tip over Shiro’s succulents on the windowsill, and enormous paws drape over the edge of the sink. A grey cat the size of a young labrador narrows his eyes at Shiro and purrs like a motor.

“Right,” Shiro says. He eases closer, and the purr goes up in volume. “Tell me you didn’t eat my cat.”

The cat in his sink yawns and lets out the smallest, most pitiful _meep_ he’s ever heard.

Shiro runs a hand through his hair. He doesn’t think he can wrangle this cat out of the sink one-handed—His prosthetic, while practical enough, hasn’t been touched in weeks. 

“Fuck,” he whispers, and the cat cries again, oozing out of his sink in the boneless way all cats do to land heavily enough to make Shiro’s fridge rattle.

_meep,_ the cat says, plaintively.

“I guess I might as well feed you,” Shiro says, and the purr rises to a thunderous, deeply approving rumble.

_meep._

———

_RRRRRRRRrrrrrrrrraaaaaaoooooooOoOOooOoOOooouUUuUuUurrrrmmmmm_

“Look, I know.”

Keith Kogane stands in his living room with a black cat wrapped up in his bath towel, claws slashing in rage. He manages to shove the poor thing into an old carrier that his own cat outgrew in about a week, and she spins round to spit at him in fury.

“I get it,” Keith says. The cat growls darkly. “I’m serious. But you can’t stay here, because you’re literally a hellbeast and this isn’t your house.”

The cat hisses, and Keith gingerly picks up the carrier.

It’s bad enough that Kosmo’s gone. Kosmo is... technically a cat. Keith thinks he is, anyways. Maybe he’s what a wolf would be in cat form. Or maybe he’s a government experiment gone wrong. Whatever the case, Kosmo may be a good boy, but he’s a bit of an emotional basket case when Keith’s out of the house, so he can only imagine the state he must be in, out there on his own. 

And instead, he now has a mineature panther trying to claw up the underside of his bed.

The strange cat yowls in her carrier, and Keith sighs.

“Yeah, man, I get it. We’ll get you home.”

She probably belongs to one of Keith’s neighbors. He hasn’t heard any unholy shrieking or cries of pain, but maybe she actually likes her owner, as unlikely as that sounds. He steps out of his apartment door, blinking groggily, just as the neighbor across the hall opens his.

It strikes Keith, as he watches his own cat rub up against his reclusive, quiet ghost of a neighbor, that he is currently wearing boxers. Just his boxers. The ugly ones, with the hole in the backside, which he wears when he’s off work with no reason to go out.

His neighbor, all lean muscle under a thin tank and loose sleep pants, holds a bag of treats in his hand and stares at Keith.

“Hey,” Keith says, eloquently.

Kosmo, rubbing against his neighbor’s legs like _he’s_ the one who’s been feeding him every day for the past two years, meeps softly.

The cat in the carrier yowls.

“I think you have my cat,” Keith’s neighbor says. Keith blinks at the cat, who glares at him with narrowed yellow eyes brimming with pure, unadulterated hate.

“I’m pretty sure you have mine,” Keith says. 

His neighbor laughs. It’s a nice laugh, low and warm and not unkind, and Keith remembers, distantly, a time when he sought out guys who smiled at him, who slid their hands up his leg in crowded bars and took him home, made him feel less alone.

For a night, anyways.

He pushes the thought aside. He’s doing fine where he is. He risks a smile and shrugs a little, and his neighbor’s cat growls.

“I’m Keith,” he says. “That’s Kosmo.”

“I’m Shiro.” His neighbor gestures behind him, towards the open door, and hesitates. “You wanna... bring Empress in? I’ll make breakfast for the trouble—I know she’s a handful.”

Keith hesitates. Empress trembles with rage. He knows he shouldn’t just walk into a stranger’s house with just his boxers and a howling hellbeast. He knows there are rules about this kind of thing. Social norms he should probably remember. But all he can see is that soft smile threatening to break across Shiro’s face, and the pleased, self-satisfied way his cat leans into him like he’s found his new human, and Keith finds himself lurching forward, ripped boxers and all.

“Sure,” he says, bearing the hellbeast into the stranger’s apartment his cat has invaded. “Sure, why not?”

**Author's Note:**

> And then they both get adopted by each others’ cats and HAVE to move in together. There’s no other option.


End file.
